The Shabak Israel Security Agency disclosed, Tuesday, that actions taken by the ISA with the assistance of Police, led to the February arrest and interrogation of Gaza resident Muhammad Murtaja, the coordinator of the Gaza branch of the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA) organization, a humanitarian assistance program run by the Government of Turkey, on suspicion of working for the military wing of Hamas. The investigation showed that Murtaja deceived TİKA by misusing the organization’s resources and funds, which were intended for substantial humanitarian projects in the Gaza Strip, by diverting them to Hamas terrorists or their relative who were presented as needy people.
It was further revealed that the Turkish İHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation helped to directly fund the activities of the Hamas military wing. The money transferred by the IHH to the Hamas military wing was used, inter alia, to build a facility to train Hamas marine forces, as well as to purchase equipment and weapons.
Murtaja provided a great deal of operative information during the investigation, including on tunnel routes, the methods used by Hamas in digging the tunnels, action plans for fighting, and weapons manufacturing.